My editorial staff, if I had one, let me down. I am quite obviously behind on my posts.
Life at this time of year has intruded more than I anticipated and I have gotten behind. Adjustments have been made and I am going to continue posting on a regular basis.
Tomorrow’s post is ready and waiting to be posted after this one, so I will just get too it.
I was reading another vintage board, cctalk, and ran across a video of somebodies new computer and it got me to thinking of videos I had seen on YouTube.
They are called unboxing videos, where the person receives a computer and removes it from the box with all the parts. They then set up the computer and demonstrate it.
I’ve seen them for modern stuff, like my new iRulu, the New Xbox One or PlayStation 4.
The one that started this off was one called Our Computer Arrives and from what I could tell from it, was done in the sixties (about 16 minutes long). It is from the UK and reminds those that watch it how much was involved in setting up a computers fifty years ago. The computer was going to be installed on the fifth floor so they had to remove a section of windows and then use a crane to lift the parts up to the fifth floor.
After I watched this one I went on to look at YouTube and found two videos. The first, Apple IIe unboxing and demo, shows off an Apple IIe and a game called Space Defender by the author.
The second, Greatest Unboxing Ever! (Apple IIe), although a little more tongue in cheek, shows off an Apple IIe and a educational game called Math Facts Tracker.
So the big black Friday weekend is over and things slow down a little. I have a bit of time for the Daily Apple.
I checked out csa2 and there is some commentary added to the announcement of Lamb Chops, one of which D Finnigan ends his comment mentioning using the joystick. I don’t have a joystick and don’t think I ever did for the Apple II, so it never even occurred to me to try one. I guess I’ll have to keep and eye out for a joystick, as this isn’t the first game that I have run across, that could use one.
There is also an announcement of a very cool project called Hayesduino which uses an Arduino board and an ethernet shield with some software to emulate a Hayes Modem. The idea is to use this with serial devices to connect to the internet, specifically the Apple II, Atari 800 and the Commodore 64. Using this you could connect (telnet) over the internet to other computers or online BBSs.
I had thought of a software only emulation of a modem to use with emulators on PCs such as AppleWin. Along those lines, a software emulation of a printer would be handy. I guess they might be drivers, but I have never run into any like that.
I’ve added links for Hayesduino and the disk image for Lamb Chops.
I had a little time to try out Lamb Chops today. It seems to take a long time to load up. but I like the graphics once it started.
Today I’m running it on AppleWin using Authentic Machine Speed.
The time from boot to first display on screen is about 16 seconds and to get to the title screen takes 1 minute 55 seconds.
When the title page came up it showed the copyright 2013 by Brian Picchi. Nice job Brian.
I haven’t played many Apple II graphics games and this game does not give any instructions, so I have to say the commands were not very intuitive to me.
By trial and error I learned the following keys and their actions:
Q: Up Left or Northwest
W: Up or North
E: Up Right or Northeast
A: Left or West
S: Down or South
D: Right or East
Z: Down Left or Southwest
X: (Not used)
C: Down Right or Southeast
Which forms a block on the left side of the keyboard and the:
Space Bar: Fire
I work retail logistics and this week has been incredibly busy with a very strange schedule in preparation of and recovery from Black Friday. After this weekend, I’ll be back to a more normal schedule, which I’m looking forward to.
Today, I had a very few minutes for the Daily Apple, so I went to see what was going on in the newsgroups.
I saw announcements for new versions of Sweet 16 and AppleCommander. Both seem like fairly large projects. I’ve never used Sweet 16 as it requires a modern Mac, which I don’t have.
I haven’t use AppleCommander recently, if at all, but that may change in the near future. It looks like it could be a very useful and powerful tool.
Also announced is a new arcade style game written in assembly for any Apple II with 64K. It’s call Lamb Chops and the author (presumably, the poster is only identified as bpl…@gmail.com) posted an announcement with links to both a YouTube video of the game and a disk image to play with. It is a game where you protect your sheep from predators. I haven’t had time to play the game, but the video looked good. The video was posted by TanRu Nomad along with a link to his website, for the disk image.
According to his website and the posting this is not his first Apple II game, but it is his first assembly language game.
I’ve been spending about two or three hours a day working on these posts since I started in April and this past weekend I just didn’t have that kind of time to work with the Apple // and come up with a post.
It’s been kind of humbling looking at the projects that others are working on. Most have aspects that I don’t understand, but all are very interesting. I wish I had the electronics background that would make them make sense.
In addition to the projects are the Apple II podcasts. I’ve found several and have been listening to the Open Apple podcast over the weekend while working on other things. In addition to listening to the podcast I’ve been following along with the links they provide for the different topics they cover.
There is still so much going on in the Apple II community, and I for one am glad I can hover around the fringes and enjoy.
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